Guess who is gonna be a bartender?!

I AM!!!

I enrolled in Bartending classes starting May 17th. They are with the bartender at the school's restaurant. She has a small school out of her home. Full bar, all the materials. She gives a manual and has powerpoints and lectures and everything. Very hands on she says. It is a five day class, 2 hours long. I worked out dates and times that I am available with her. And it only costs $250 dollars!

I have always wanted to take bar classes just to have that foundation and practice because good bartenders make bank! And of course it is good to have that knowlege because it makes you that more valuable having the knowledge of mixed drinks. (And I can impress people of course)!

I'll keep you all posted as to how my classes go once I start them! SO excited!

Apple Cider Update: WARNING: This post contains sad news

Sooooo about that hard apple cider project I was taking part of.....it is now fermenting in the green metal compost bins of the CIA. Let's see if I can explain what happened in a scientifically correct manner:

The pulp which was being pressed for its juices was removed and taken to the trash. To quote my friend who took part in this epic removal of the pulp: "You should also know that after determining that the apple pulp was entirely eradicated of any remaining juices, we made an effort to take said pulp to the trash. Unfortunately, in this process, the bag of pulp exploded over the stairwell under which we were carrying it. This is in part an apology for the smells and residues that linger in said stairwell. It was for a good cause. Promise. "

Well after the pulp was removed, the juices were happily left to ferment and bubble away. GO YEAST!! Well, yeast needs sugar to live, so it was quite happy in that pool of delicious appley sugars. But once the yeast runs out of sugar to eat, it turns to alcohol, which is why some people add sugar to any fermenting beverage--not to raise the sugar levels, but to raise the alcohol levels. Well, what happened here was that the yeast was so hungry that it ate all of the sugars before more sugar could be added. And before more sugar could be added, it turned to alcohol. And we all know what happens to alcohol if it continues to ferment...the birth of VINEGAR!

Yes. Our hopeful apple cider turned into apple cider vinegar, horrible vinegar at that (according to the above person whom i quoted). They threw it out.

Mission Apple Cider: FAIL.

Oh well.

Drum roll please.......I PASSED!!!

YAY! I passed the practical. Well, I knew I would pass, but I passed with a pretty good grade. 85. I was hoping for something in the 90's based on my performance from last year. I played it pretty safe this year and made sure not to oversalt my food (resulted in me undersalted some stuff, oh well)

Here is the menu:

Fish Course:
Seared Scallops with Beurre Blanc over spinach, pine nuts, and macerated raisins

Main Course:
Poached chicken with vin blanc sauce
Fresh Pasta tossed in herbs
Sauteed Mushrooms with Madeira and thyme
Broccolini

I cooked everything nicely, I just didnt salt it as much as I should have and by the time the food got to the chef, it had cooled down a tiny bit, so he took off a few points for that.

On the oral exam, where the chef asks questions about cooking, I got a 10/10, so yay!!

I would say it was a success, its no high pass like last year, but im still happy!

Smooth sailing till graduation!!!

5th Term Practical Tomorrow!!!!!

Hi Blog Readers,
So if you have been loyal, you have been reading this for a while. Last February, I posted about my 2nd term cooking practical where I had to cook a soup and entree (protein, starch, 2 veg) for me and the chef that was grading me in 2 1/2 hours. I did awesome! 95!!! Well, I have to do the same thing again tomorrow, but for my 5th term practical.
This is different than second term because we do not make a soup. Instead, we make a fish course. The recipes are all from food we cooked last year in our beginning classes, minus the seared scallops and beurre blanc which we practiced in Cuisines of Mediterranean. For the most part, everything I learned last year continues into what we make in the kitchens this year.
I spent all last week typing up recipes, timelines, equipment lists, etc. I know exactly how to set it up already from last year because it worked so well for me that way. It took a lot less time to make my time lines than it did last year! While most everything seemed unfamiliar at first, the more I looked at it and studied it, it all started to make sense. I am actually quite excited for my practical because I really enjoy this kind of cooking, you know, just a nice meal for me and one or two other people. Its great! This is how I LEARNED to cook (you're welcome Mom and Dad...and Steve).
WISH ME LUCK!!! I'll be sure to post about how it goes tomorrow night!! Or if you are my mom or dad, you will get a phone call from me

When life gives you apples, make apple cider!

From bottom to top:
--7 bushels of apples
--apple pulp
--pureeing of apple pulp
--final contraption of the apple pulp straining juice, this will sit until all juice is pressed and then will be bottled.

Yes, I am in the process of making apple cider. It started with a phone call from a friend asking if I could drive him and two of my other friends to get 350 pounds of apples (since I have a big enough car to fit them all). Slightly taken aback, I say, umm, what are you buying that many apples for? And they say, we are making sparkling apple cider (apple wine, hard cider). So begins our journey to Meadowbrook Farms, about 30 minutes from school, where we buy 7 bushels of apples, costing 10 dollars a bushel, (about 75 dollars total) which breaks down to about $.20 per pound!
Our night begins by setting up a nifty contraption in which to make the "to-become-hard cider." We buy four 18 gallon plastic storage buckets and cut a hole in the bottom of two of them (we are making two sets of fermenting juice). We then take an oven rack and lay it over the bottom one (without the hole). We lay a sheet inside of the one with the hole on top of the oven rack. The idea behind it is to put the pureed apples into the sheet, and the juice drips through the sheet into the bottom bucket, where it will then ferment. The pulp is being pressed to squeeze the juice out. Once the juice is all pressed, we will bottle and cork it (we know people who supplied us with corks, bottles, and a corker contraption). It will then ferment in the bottle, creating apple wine or hard cider.
The couple who I am making this with already made apple spiced cider this summer using this method, so we know it works, but they made only about 1 gallon where we are going to yield about 14 gallons. And they are taking it one step furthur by fermenting it....illegal? maybe? dunno...
After setting up our contraption, we got to work pureeing the apples. We had a small little food processor, so with that, we were able to puree 3 1/2 bushels in 3 hours. We started around 9 pm last night and finished at 3 am this morning. We worked in shifts, so I chopped apples to be pureed until 12:30 then someone took over for me. I have attached pictures of what we have so far. I also attached a picture of the final contraption.

The cider should be ready around the end of June to drink.

Wines class: the 3 weeks when drinking and studying consumes my life

Wine Studies: The hardest class in the school. I survived! It was difficult. Three weeks long (though now that it is over, I wish it was longer). We divided the class into three parts--New World (USA, Canada, eh?, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand), France and Italy, and Spain and Portugal. It is a lot of information very quickly and a lot of memorization is required. I enjoyed the class though. It was nice to have a challenging class again where studying consumed my life.
Every day, we had wine tastings which included about 10 wines. We had to spit the wine though (but I didn't always do that since some of the wines were "out of this world" delicious).
It is one of the most failed classes in the school (three people in our class failed this block and lots of other came very close to not passing). I just did my best to not let it stress me out. I know a lot of people who just died during it because they were not used to all of the studying necessary to pass the class. I did fairly well in the class, though not as well as I hoped. There were two quizzes, a test, and a paper. On the second quiz ( France and Italy) I did not do so well. I just could not learn the information in time because it was so broken up from a weekend, so that brought my grade down unfortunately. I am still very happy with my grade considering the reputation of the class.
I really enjoyed learning about wine. It has always been a subject that overwhelmed me and I did not like to try new wines, but now that I have a wealth of knowledge, I can use it in my future culinary applications. I cannot wait till I am 21 and I can go to a wine store and actually KNOW what to look for!

Seriously? I'm stuck on Family Meal!?!

When I moved to Banquets back of the house (kitchen), I was put on family meal....meaning me and my partner were responsible for cooking lunch (family meal) for the students who were serving. We did not have a part in the cooking for the class, what a lack of a learning experience, or so I thought. I have a little experience in catering previous to coming to school, so I have an idea of how it all works, but being stuck on family meal is something I would consider good for me.
My chef pretty much refused to order anything special for us to make for family meal, except for the protein of the day. He wanted us to learn how to use what, and only what, was available in the kitchen that day (since that would be a real life scenario).
I found it difficult to scrape something up to cook because of course I want to make a delicious family meal....the class before us served baked chicken almost every day with some lame over dressed salad, garlic bread, and a some over cooked vegetables. I wanted to actually make something palatable. But now I see why it was so difficult. The kitchen barely had any useful ingredients to begin with!
I am most proud, however, of when we ordered in flank steak and I made the same beef wellington sauce I made for Christmas break. We had all of the necessary ingredients in the kitchen, i was SO excited to make it! I took Madeira wine and reduced it with tarragon and shallots, added veal stock, reduced it, then added in honey and some cornstarch to thicken. It tasted great! I even impressed one guy in my class who never really took me seriously until he realized that, oh my goodness, I can cook!
As for the flank steak, my partner did not quick hold up his end and we ran late on serving family meal, but the sauce was sooo good! My mom can vouch for me since she ate it at Christmas dinner.